Heads Or Tails
by kingfisher's game
Summary: Collection of Okikagu drabbles. Ch 8: RED—"The little girl looks very small and very innocent sitting among the silver-white lilies, and the wolf can't believe his luck that of all the evil things in these woods, he's the first one to find her."
1. CRUELTY

Heads or Tails

kingfishers' game

Chapter 1: CRUELTY

…

_**Notes**__: Hello all! I'm extremely excited to be posting _Heads or Tails_, a collection of short Okikagu-themed drabbles that I originally wrote as creative exercises while working on _Kids Will Be Kids_. There will be a mix of canon-based and AU settings, and the length of each drabble will range from 100–500 words. Occasionally, however, I may post a longer piece—and I already have a few lined up!_

_I'm starting with a list of one-word prompts from tumblr user _ towriteprompts_, and the first prompt I'm doing is "CRUELTY". Enjoy!_

* * *

Kagura's well aware that Sougo's got a sadistic streak, but this is downright cruel.

It goes like this—Kagura's 16 years old when she starts…feeling feelings toward the first division captain of the Shinsengumi. She wouldn't call it 'liking' him—she likes him just about as much as she did before. It's more of a…physical thing.

It starts out when they're fighting one day, in the park, and Kagura has him on his back and she's sitting on his stomach and all of a sudden, there's this really annoying voice in her brain telling her that it would take very little effort to bend down and kiss him right on his stupid face. Of course, she doesn't do that; she goes home and tells Gin-chan that there's a voice in her head telling her to do crazy things, to which he responds that he can't afford to put her in a mental hospital, so she'll just have to tough it out.

It takes a couple more incidents of close physical contact with Sougo before Kagura realizes that the voice in her head is actually _her own_ voice, and that she's not so much suffering a psychotic break as she is experiencing one of the more colorful side effects of adolescence. The question of '_why couldn't it have been literally anyone else_' is answered when she makes a short list in her mind of all the men she knows who are:

\- Not so old their pillows smell like 'ossan' (i. e. Gin-chan)

\- Not so young they still make picture diaries for school (i. e. Seita)

\- Not practically family (i. e. Shinpachi)

\- Not literally family (i. e. Kamui)

\- Not giant titans (i. e. what was his name again?)

She comes up with two people. And unless she wants to track down Hongo Hisashi and invite him to do some radio exercises horizontally, the only option left is Sougo. So it's not her fault. It's just…process of elimination.

(She chooses to ignore the voice when it tells her that attraction is not generally decided by process of elimination.)

Maybe it's wrong to say he's being cruel. She realizes…grudgingly…that he's not _really_ responsible. Somehow that makes it worse.

* * *

_**Notes**__: Thanks for reading! Your favorites, follows, and reviews are greatly appreciated._

_Want to suggest a drabble? __**Leave your prompt in a review and I'll use it (and credit you, of course) if inspiration strikes!**__ Right now I'm mostly focusing on one-word prompts, but if you have something longer, feel free to give it a shot._

_Next time, Chapter 2: _WINTER


	2. WINTER

Heads or Tails

kingfishers' game

Chapter 2: WINTER

…

_**Notes**__: Today's prompt is "WINTER". I wrote this quite a while ago while I was visiting family in the Northern USA. It was snowing, and I live in a place where it never snows, so I basically fell in love. Anyway, I hope you like it!_

* * *

Winter suits Kagura. If Sougo had to wager a guess he'd bet it's her favorite season—the clouds, the snow, the limited hours of sunlight…it's a dream setting for the Yato. It's not even 6 PM and the sun has already sunk over the horizon. The shops are still open, but they've put their lights on. The sky is velvet black and sewn with stars.

Sougo's sitting next to the window in a cafe booth watching for Joui activity from the suspected hideout across the street, but really he's watching the snow fall in greeting-card-perfect white flakes. There's something mesmerizing about the way it piles up on every flat surface, a thick layer of blue-white icing painted golden and red and green where the lights from the shops spill out through the windows. The street is almost empty. No one in their right mind would be out in this freezing weather.

It makes sense, then, that Kagura's out there walking her dog. _'No one in their right mind', huh?_ The corner of Sougo's mouth perks up when he spots her skipping her way through the banks of snow. She's always good for entertainment, that girl, always ready to spar. He is, too.

But today is different, because something stops Sougo from knocking on the glass to get her attention or trying to pick a fight. There's a kind of private, secret joy on Kagura's face as she flits through the banks of snow. Her cheeks and her ears are as red as the cheongsam she's wearing and her eyes are sparkling—actually _sparkling_—like she's the main character of a cheesy holiday movie about 'the meaning of Christmas' and not the dorky little heroine of _Gintama_ that he knows and…hates. The fairy lights strung up on every building throw circles of pale gold over her skin.

Today, tonight, she seems like…Kagura, but not Kagura. A Kagura he's never seen before, one who is perfectly aligned with the still, glittering world outside. She looks alien—not in the way Sougo has ever thought of aliens or Amanto, but…ethereal, ephemeral. It's as if she's completely alone in the universe, and completely at ease within it. Sougo's never seen her look so happy.

Somehow it makes him feel lonely.

He knocks on the window after all and makes a face at her. When she sees him she perks up and bounds into the cafe, the melting snow from her boots leaving wet footprints on the tile floor. "Buy me a hot cocoa," she orders him playfully.

"Why should I?"

"It's so cold outside!" She's flushed and breathless. "Feel how cold my hands are."

Sougo's taken aback when Kagura grabs his hand and rubs it with hers, and it's not just the fact that her skin is like ice that sends a shiver up his spine. She waves a waiter over and asks for a hot cocoa—"add it to his tab," she says, cocking her head at Sougo—and for a second he feels off-balance.

"Don't play outside if you're going to get cold," he snipes, pulling his hand away from his…but he pays for her drink anyway.

* * *

_**Notes**__: I wanted to write a Sougo who is caught off guard and a little more gentle than usual, haha._

_Remember to leave a review/comment with your prompt suggestion!_

_Next time, Chapter 3: _LESSON (Class 3-Z AU)


	3. LESSON

Heads or Tails

kingfishers' game

Chapter 3: LESSON

…

_**Notes**__: The prompt for this chapter is "LESSON", and it's a class 3-Z AU! I really liked writing them as middle school students—maybe I'll do a longer fic in this universe one day? I actually already have one started…_

* * *

Kagura's not stupid. She's just got a bad attention span and doesn't care about studying. Even though she consistently makes the lowest grades in class 3-Z, Sougo knows she's not actually dumb.

Not that that'll stop him from goading her about it.

It's a blessing and a curse that his desk is right next to hers. He's made a habit of spying on her grades and making fun of her when assignments get passed back. Thing is, she never really seems embarrassed about her terrible marks until he teases her about them.

"11%? Seriously?"

"Shut up." She snatches her test back from him and folds it over so the grade is hidden. But it doesn't matter. He's already seen it. The damage is done.

"How did you get 11% on a multiple choice exam?"

"I said, shut up!" she snaps, flustered.

He smirks at her. Or just smiles. He isn't really sure himself. Even if it is a smile, he knows she'll just think he's mocking her anyway. "You could have just marked the same thing for every answer. Then you could've gotten at least 25%."

"No one does that in real life, uh-huh."

"Oh, really?" Sougo waves his own graded test in front of her face, the answer key filled in with a perfectly straight row of filled-in bubbles. 'B', all the way down. At the top of the sheet, in red pen, is the figure '29%'. The marking is accompanied by an frowny-face doodle. "I got 3 times what you got."

"Don't be proud of that," says Ginpachi-sensei, as he smacks both of them upside the head. "You're the only ones in the class who failed. You're both getting supplementary lessons.

"Jeez, and I thought I made this test really easy," the teacher adds under his breath.

That afternoon, Sougo whistles the whole way home.

* * *

_**Notes**__: I'm really enjoying the interaction I'm getting on this fic! Lots of inspiration. Keep it up!_

_Next time, Chapter 4: _RESURFACE


	4. RESURFACE

Heads or Tails

kingfishers' game

Chapter 4: RESURFACE

…

_**Notes**__: This week's prompt, "RESURFACE", was a hard one! I really had to reach, haha._

* * *

Sougo doesn't like the ocean. He's a country samurai, a small-town boy, and the first time he ever saw that vast expanse of endless water beyond the coast was when he moved to Edo at the age of 14. There was something eerie about all that nothing, the way the boats leaving would seem to sail off the horizon into emptiness.

He doesn't think of space in the same way until he falls in love with Kagura.

"It's like dating a sailor," he slurs drunkenly to Kondou one night at last call in the Shinsengumi's favorite cop bar. "Y'know. Like, she leaves to go alien hunting with her dad, and I'm like, fucking waiting at the window like 'when will my husband come home from war?'"

The truth of the statement is pounded into Sougo's head along with his hangover the next morning. He pretends that his head isn't splitting open with a headache so Kagura won't leave him to sleep when she calls at 8 AM with bells in her voice to tell him about her adventures in the world beyond Earth.

Sougo feels sick in more ways than one.

_I miss you_, he wants to say, but he doesn't. "Alien girl," he tells her fondly, "don't forget me when you're off making trouble in the stars."

"_Come with me next time_," says Kagura through the receiver. "_I'll show you my hometown. You can see where I came from_."

Sougo doesn't like the ocean, but that doesn't mean he can't learn to swim.

* * *

_**Notes**__: Don't you love Okikagu in an established relationship with a healthy dose of pining? So cute!_

_Remember to leave a review with your one-word prompt!_

_Next time, Chapter 5: _IMMORTALITY


	5. IMMORTALITY

Heads or Tails

kingfishers' game

Chapter 5: IMMORTALITY

…

_**Notes**__: For this week, the prompt is "IMMORTALITY". This also seems to be the chapter of stream-of-consciousness-style run-on sentences. Enjoy!_

* * *

For a long time, Kagura is the closest thing to immortal Sougo has ever seen up close. The way she heals is like magic—a bullet wound? A sliced-up muscle? A minor concussion? Wave a wand, and _poof!_ It's fixed! Minus the wand, of course. A broken arm that would keep Sougo out of commission for _months_ requires barely a night's rest to heal for Kagura. In his mind, he firmly believes that nothing short of amputation can keep her off her feet.

Of course, in the past few years he's met others of her race, some of whom are some stronger than her; as well as an actual, real-live immortal, in the form of a megalomaniac bent on world destruction: downright monsters who have revised his opinion of where Kagura sits on the immortality spectrum. But most of the time, the Umibouzu and the Seventh Division and Utsuro are all very far away from the patch of time and space called 'Edo', making it easy to forget about them (or at least move them to the infinitely-expanding pile of things titled 'Not Sougo's Problem')—whereas Kagura is very present, and in fact seems to exert her presence aggressively whenever she comes into contact with Sougo.

Thus, when he thinks of _sheer brute strength_ he thinks of her; when he thinks of _indestructibility_ he thinks of her; and, yeah, when he thinks of _immortality_, it's her stupid grin that pops into his head. After the first time he witnessed what a _human_ would have considered a fairly serious head injury (_he hadn't meant to cut her so deeply, really, but she was so fucking fast it would be a death sentence to try to hold back_) close up before his eyes, like a time-lapse film, leaving only a nasty smear of drying blood, he'd pretty much forgotten that she wasn't immortal.

She was _Amanto_, and not the nice, friendly kind of Amanto that they did specials about on the TV; no, she was a Yato, daughter of a rare warrior clan about which little was known save that they killed like they ate, like they _breathed_, by instinct. She was a 14 year old girl who could fight him (_him!_) to a draw over and over and over, and that made her a foreign quantity. In this patch of time and space (provided the other foreign quantities, those that were Not Sougo's Problem, stayed far away) she was as good as immortal.

But really, that was just how Sougo saw her. Subconsciously. Because she wasn't immortal. Otherwise, she wouldn't be in a hospital bed with a respirator strapped over her mouth and needles poking into her her skinny white arms and her eyes all wide and bloodshot and _Jesus Christ_, if there was one thing Sougo could never do again it was watch someone die like_ this_.

* * *

_**Notes**__: Remember in canon when Kagura got a summer cold but then because no one knew how to treat Yato everyone thought she was going to die, so they put her in the hospital and arranged a funeral for her? This fic is set when Sougo and Soyo come to see her, before Sougo realizes she's faking. Maybe this is why he reacted like such a dick?_

_Next time, Chapter 6: _HAPPIEST


	6. HAPPIEST

Heads or Tails

kingfishers' game

Chapter 6: HAPPIEST

…

_**Notes**__: Welcome back, dear readers! I'm really enjoying hearing from you, especially since these past few weeks have been pretty nightmarish IRL. I won't bore you with the details, but it involves a lost wallet, several internships, and two very adorable cats in an apartment where cats are expressly forbidden on the lease (whoops). Thank you for your patience!_

_This chapter, HAPPIEST, is one of my favorites. It's also a bit longer and more than a bit angsty-er than those preceding. It's a Be Forever Yorozuya AU (from the Gintama movie). Enjoy!_

* * *

Maybe Sougo's a bad person. No, there's really no question, no 'maybe'—he knows he's a bad person.

The White Plague has destroyed Edo more quickly and more terribly than any Amanto army ever could. The Yorozuya's Danna has disappeared, leaving Kagura and Shinpachi to split up and roam the city looking for a purpose that has been gone from the world for five years. The Shinsengumi is a band of rogues, the government is in shambles, and so many are dead. Hell on Earth is just Earth.

Kagura stays in the old Yorozuya building. Sougo knows she could have left—left the house, the city, even the planet, if she wanted to. She could have gone back to the rain-soaked planet she came from. But she stays, on Earth, in the Yorozuya, if only so she can sleep in Gintoki's old room and hold on to that feeble hope that he will come back and be happy to have someone waiting for him.

Sougo often sleeps at the Yorozuya too, but for different reasons.

The Shinsengumi is officially disbanded early on, and Sougo moves in with Kondou. When Sougo starts leaving his bed empty most nights, Kondou teases him, asks him who his new girlfriend is. Eventually he stops asking. If Hijikata ever wonders, he keeps his inquiries to himself.

Kagura has nightmares sometimes. From what Sougo can see, the worst kind are the quiet kind. Not the kind that leave her screaming the whole block awake, but the kind that seep in silently and twist up her heart. The kind that leave her with dark bruises under her eyes in the morning. Sougo has become a light sleeper—always on alert, waiting for the blankets to go slack, waiting for her to leave the space next to him, waiting for her to creep away, to go to the balcony and look up at the night. He wants to know what she's thinking when she does that, if she's asking her mother for advice or wishing on the North Star for Danna to come back or praying to a God Sougo isn't sure anyone believes in anymore for a reason to keep fighting, keep _living_—

—or what.

She always looks so alone, standing there at that balcony with only the stars over her head. Sometimes, Sougo wants to stop her, pull her back into the blankets, and tell her _I'm here, I'm right here, stop waiting for the people who left you to come back_. But the image of her lone silhouette against the stars always reminds him: _oh, this is a sadness I can't intrude upon_.

Kagura never invites him to the Yorozuya. He shows up and she opens the door. They treat each other like strangers in public. In Sougo's opinion, they treat each other like strangers in private, too—other than sleeping together.

'Sleeping together', because _fucking_ sounds abhorrent in his head. So does _making love_. He wishes there was a way of saying it that could encompass both the strangeness of it and his certainty that it is _right_. He has never once failed to be surprised at how warm her skin is and how her hair is incredibly long and soft and thick and how her breath is so, _so_ hot. He has to coax the voice out from her, has to make her heart beat faster, has to make sure she isn't going anywhere. Because if she ever decides to take her father or her brother up on their subtle offers to provide passage away from Earth, Sougo knows she will never,

ever

come back.

He hasn't yet found a word that describes all that.

He doesn't know what she wants from him. Then again, he doesn't know what he wants from her, either—other than that he wants her to stay.

Sougo worries more often than he wants to that Kagura loved Gintoki, loved him in a way other than as a parent or a sibling. It's possible. She was young when Gintoki disappeared, young enough to have nurtured a one-sided crush on a man she relied on. She certainly acts like a widowed young wife, pining and pining, closing herself off. Or maybe not—Sougo knows well enough that familial love can break your heart just as cruelly as romantic love.

He's never asked her. He doesn't really want to know the answer. It doesn't matter, anyway—Gintoki is gone, and Kagura's heart is broken.

Sougo's a bad person, because he hopes Gintoki stays gone. He hopes Kagura will stop waking up to nightmares, or at least that one day instead of leaving the room to go look out at the sky she'll turn toward Sougo and realize that she isn't alone.

Because even if Kagura never loved Gintoki as anything but family, she was still happiest when she was with him.

And, eventually, when Gintoki returns, having both sent out the plague and helped to eradicate it, and he can ask no forgiveness from his two young wards (not that he doesn't receive it of course; Shinpachi and Kagura loved him, after all, and there is nothing they could not forgive)—Sougo is a bad person, because he was happiest when Gintoki was dead.

* * *

_**Notes**__: You know that joke that prompts like this really bring out a writer's true nature, because we'll just twist the prompt to suit our interests? This story feels like that to me. HAPPIEST? Yeah right, lol._

_I really do love Be Forever Yorozuya AUs. Maybe I'll do a full-length story in this universe one day._

_Next time, Chapter 7: _WIND


	7. WIND

Heads or Tails

kingfishers' game

Chapter 7: WIND

…

_**Notes**__: After a lot of drama, I'm in the mood for something lighthearted._

* * *

Kagura has started make it a habit to stand upwind of Sougo whenever she can help it.

It's just… There's this thing. It's a Yato thing. It's not like she's doing it on purpose, but she can kind of…_smell_ him. He's not _special_—she could smell anyone if she wanted to. It's not some kind of animalistic 'every body has a different scent' kind of deal, just a sort of…heightened sense thing. Usually she chooses to ignore it, but over time some scents she sort of gets acclimatized to, enough so that she can recognize them.

Gin-chan, for example. Gin-chan smells like booze and sweet things and sweat. Not, like, body-odor sweat, but just regular old sweat. It's something she wouldn't have noticed if she didn't live with him, but she does. It's gotten to the point where she associates the way he smells with home, so much so that when he staggers back up to their front step after a long night of drinking, she's mostly just being difficult when she tells him not to get near her until he takes a shower because he 'reeks'.

Mostly.

Shinpachi, too. He's cleaning supplies and home cooking—what Kagura imagines the housewife moms on TV smell like. It's a nice smell, much better than the charred egg fragrance Kagura associates with his sister.

Sougo—when Kagura can't manage to position herself in a location where she's upwind of him—smells like…nothing special, really. Soap. Gunpowder smoke. Bubblegum. It's not like it's _bad_, it's just—

She can't seem to stop noticing it.

The problem is that lately they've been spending time together. A _lot_ of time together. It has to be a coincidence, because she's definitely not seeking him out. If anything, she's going out of her way to avoid him, but he keeps showing up when she's out shopping or walking Sadaharu or on a job with Gin-chan and Shinpachi. She always knows he's coming a few seconds before he shows up, because of that smell.

Wait, no. That's not the problem. The problem—the real problem—is that she's sort of started thinking (privately, of course, only when there's no one else around to see the blush on her face) that he smells _good_.

* * *

_**Notes**__: Next time, Chapter 8: _RED_ (as suggested by _coni2016_. Thanks for the prompt!__)_


	8. RED

Heads or Tails

kingfishers' game

Chapter 9: RED

…

_**Notes**__: Thank you, _coni2016_, for this chapter prompt—"RED". It took a long time for me to think of what to write for this one, but I finally decided on a fairy tale AU featuring Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf. Rather than a full-blown wolf, Sougo's more like a wolf spirit/yōkai._

_I love this AU and hopefully one day I'll write a longer story about it._

* * *

_She shouldn't have worn red_, the wolf thinks as he watches the little girl through the trees. Her scarlet cloak stands out like a beacon among the greens and browns of the forest. Even if she were wearing black, though, her hair would still make her a target.

She shouldn't have strayed off the path, either.

Her gaze moves in his direction as he slips out of the woods that surround the tiny clearing where she's on her knees picking wildflowers. The little girl looks very small and very innocent sitting among the silver-white lilies, and the wolf can't believe his luck that of all the evil things in these woods, he's the first one to find her. When she sees him, she sits up and blinks, surprised, but there's no fear on her face.

"A boy?" she whispers to herself. "A boy with…" Her eyes flit up to the top of his head. "…doggy ears. And a tail."

"I'm not a dog. I'm a wolf," says the wolf. She doesn't seem scared, so he steps closer and crouches down next to her. "Are you lost, little one?"

A frown passes over her childish features. "You can't call me little one. You're little too."

_Brat_. His tail twitches, and the girl's eyes follow the movement with tangible fascination. "What are you doing in my woods?" he asks.

"Papi told me not to talk to strangers."

"Then introduce yourself. That way we're not strangers."

She considers him for a moment, staring directly into his eyes in a way that unsettles him. The only sound is the wind singing through the grass (his presence has scared away all the birds), and then her high voice breaks the silence. "…My name is Kagura."

"Nice to meet you, Kagura," the wolf says, and his grin is a little bit too wide.

Kagura uproots another wild lily to add to the pile in her basket, and then looks back up at the wolf-boy, who is reaching down to her for some reason. "Well?"

"Well, what?" He's taken aback by her lack of anxiety. Has she really not yet sensed that she's in danger?

"Well, what's your name? It only counts as introducing ourselves if you do it too."

His hand stills an inch away from the collar of her cloak. It's something only a child would ask, but he supposes he can allow this final indulgence. "…My name is Sougo."

Funny. The name—his own name, his real name—feels unfamiliar on his tongue. He'd almost forgotten it.

"Nice to meet you, Sougo," Kagura says.

Sougo hasn't heard anyone speak his name out loud in a very long time. He doesn't dislike it.

"Can I pet your ears?" Without waiting for a response, Kagura reaches up and strokes one of Sougo's fuzzy wolf ears. It's his own fault for being within arm's length of her, but the contact shocks him and he has to stop himself from jerking out of her reach. Her touch is careful and delicate, like she's coaxing a wild thing. Her hands are warm.

_Stupid. You should be afraid_, Sougo thinks, but he lets her pet him anyway.

"I'm taking medicine to my Mami," Kagura tells him, scratching behind his ears. Without meaning to, he leans his head into her hand. "I wanted to bring some flowers to her along with her medicine and snacks, but now I can't find the path."

"What snacks?" Sougo asks, watching her face through half-lidded eyes. She pulls her hand away to open the wicker picnic basket, and Sougo tries not to admit to himself that he misses her touch as soon as it's gone. He can tell before she pulls it out that the food in the basket is _good_—the mingling smells of rolls of fresh bread, a hunk of cheese, apples, and a few rich cuts of bacon make his mouth water. It's not quite as enticing as the meal he'd had planned, but it'll have to do. "Give me the food."

"What? No, it's for me and Mami!"

"I can take you back to the path, but you'll need to pay a toll. These are my woods."

He can tell she's not happy about it, but after a moment of pouting and internal debate, she nods. "Fine."

Sougo opens his hand and closes it in an unmistakeable _give it to me gesture_, not trusting Kagura to hand over the food once she's back on her way to her mother. She glares at him, but when it's clear there's no way she's getting out of the woods without his help, she relents, stuffing the bottle of medicine and the lilies into the pocket of her coat before handing the basket over to the wolf-boy. "You better enjoy it," she gripes.

"It was this or you," Sougo says, keeping his tone light enough so that if she's really as foolish as she appears to be, she'll think he's joking. He stands up and holds his hand out to her.

Her small fingers lace together with his to pull herself up and once again, he notes how warm her hands are. She's short enough that he has to slow his footsteps so she can keep up with him as they walk through the forest.

"You shouldn't come through these woods again," Sougo tells Kagura. "And if you do, stay on the path. There are yōkai here who eat little girls for breakfast."

"Don't worry, I'll be careful," Kagura tells him, her voice playful enough that he thinks, for some reason, that he's being teased. "When I come see Mami again, I'll bring more food for you. To 'pay tribute'."

For such a vulnerable little human girl, she's not nearly as fearful as she should be. Sougo decides he likes it. "Make it a steak next time. Extra rare."

* * *

_**Notes**__: God, I love fairy tale AUs. Sougo and Kagura are so good in these roles._


End file.
